A dozen European high-tech firms – STC-ICL, Plessey, GEC, Siemens, Nixdorf, AEG, Bull, Thomson, CGE, Olivetti, Stet and Philips – came together in a Round Table discussion this week and concluded by putting their names to a joint petition to the EEC Commission demanding that competition policy exclude any crimp on cross-border mergers since combination of even the largest European companies would create firms that only matched the US and Japanese giants; that backing for research and development should extend beyond the pre-competitive stage to cover product development; and that all European telecommunications monopolies should be ended.
